By admin 
President Donald Trump has alleged he was the target of “three very sinister events” at United Nations headquarters during the General Assembly in New York this week, saying a halted escalator, a failed teleprompter and muted audio during his address amounted to “triple sabotage” and demanding a formal investigation that he says will involve the U.S.
Secret Service. In a social media post on Wednesday, a day after his speech to world leaders, Trump wrote, “This wasn’t a coincidence, this was triple sabotage at the UN. They ought to be ashamed of themselves,” adding that he was sending a letter to Secretary-General António Guterres and that “the Secret Service is involved.”
Video taken as the president and first lady Melania Trump entered the complex on Tuesday shows an escalator carrying the couple stopping abruptly, forcing them to climb the remaining steps.
Later, opening his remarks in the General Assembly Hall, Trump told delegates, “The teleprompter is not working,” and quipped, “I can only say that whoever’s operating this teleprompter is in big trouble,” before continuing his speech.
Afterward he said he learned “the sound was completely off” in the hall during his remarks. “All I got from the United Nations was an escalator that, on the way up, stopped right in the middle… These are the two things I got from the United Nations: a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter,” he said.
Trump’s account escalated in tone on Wednesday. “A REAL DISGRACE took place at the United Nations yesterday — Not one, not two, but three very sinister events!” he wrote, asserting that delegates could only hear him via interpreter earpieces and describing the halted escalator as “absolutely sabotage.”
“It’s amazing that Melania and I didn’t fall forward onto the sharp edges of these steel steps, face first. It was only that we were each holding the handrail tightly or, it would have been a disaster,” he said.
The United Nations pushed back, offering a technical explanation for the escalator stoppage and distancing itself from the other complaints. Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the secretary-general, said a review “including a readout of the machine’s central processing unit” indicated the escalator halted after a built-in safety mechanism on the comb step at the top was triggered—likely by a videographer from the U.S. delegation who had moved ahead of the president to film the arrival.
“The videographer may have inadvertently triggered the safety function,” the statement said. The U.N. also noted that operation of the U.S. president’s teleprompter is handled by the White House, not U.N. staff.
The Associated Press reported that Trump had told the U.N. to preserve security footage around the escalator and that the Secret Service would look into the incident.
The AP and Washington Post both noted that a U.N. official, speaking on background, said the teleprompter is the responsibility of the president’s team; Dujarric declined comment on that device beyond confirming it was not operated by the United Nations.
Trump’s allegation that the speech audio was “completely off” has not been corroborated by the U.N.; the White House pointed reporters to the president’s posts and to subsequent statements by aides.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, amplified the president’s suspicion on Tuesday after the escalator stoppage, posting that “if someone at the UN intentionally stopped the escalator as the President and First Lady were stepping on, they need to be fired and investigated immediately.”
She shared a screenshot of a report in the Times of London that said U.N. staff had previously joked about shutting off escalators to embarrass Trump, and later told Fox News the incidents “don’t look like a coincidence.”
CBS News reported that a federal law-enforcement source confirmed the Secret Service is examining the escalator matter, while the U.N. reiterated its mechanical finding based on the unit’s safety log.
During his General Assembly address Tuesday, Trump used the glitches to underscore his wider critique of the institution as complacent and ineffectual.
He told leaders their countries “are going to hell,” a line that drew attention for its bluntness, and said the U.N. offers “empty words” rather than results. Shortly afterward, he returned to the early mishaps as he spoke, joking about the teleprompter and referring again to the halted escalator.
His aides framed those references as more than jokes by evening, signaling that they would seek accountability from U.N. management if intentional wrongdoing were found.
The U.N.’s explanation offered a prosaic account of events. In its note to correspondents, the organization said the escalator’s safety system functioned as designed to prevent people or objects from being pulled into the gearing at the top, and that the stoppage coincided with the U.S. videographer reaching the landing while recording the presidential arrival.
Over the past year, U.N. facilities in New York and Geneva have also intermittently shut down elevators and escalators to cut costs amid what officials have called a liquidity crisis, a point raised in AP coverage of the incident and cited by U.N. staff in recent months.
Trump’s allegation about the hall’s sound system centered on his contention that the public-address volume was lowered so that only those wearing interpreter earpieces could hear him clearly.
The Washington Post reported that a White House official—speaking anonymously to discuss internal procedures—claimed U.N. staff initially barred Trump’s team from setting up the teleprompter before the speech, forcing them to adjust the device as he spoke; the U.N. declined to engage those details.
There was no immediate independent verification of a deliberate audio reduction in the hall, though Trump repeated that complaint in his social-media posts and in a follow-up letter aides said was sent to the secretary-general.
The president’s demands landed as his administration continues to pare back engagement and funding across parts of the multilateral system.
Axios noted that Trump has moved to withdraw from some U.N. bodies and reduce U.S. financial contributions, a posture that has coincided with the U.N.’s public warnings about cash flow and service cutbacks. In that broader context, Trump’s press operation seized on this week’s stoppage as emblematic of an institution he says has “tremendous potential” but is “not even coming close” to realizing it.
What happens next may hinge on whether U.S. protective services and U.N. facilities staff reach aligned findings. The Secret Service typically reviews any incident that poses a potential safety risk to a protectee, including mechanical failures in controlled corridors such as secured escalators.
CBS News reported that the agency is looking into the escalator issue; the U.N., for its part, has already published a technical account pointing to an accidental trigger. Neither side has offered a public timeline for further updates.
Trump’s own words captured the split between his initial levity and subsequent accusation. “If the first lady wasn’t in great shape, she would have fallen,” he told the hall Tuesday, drawing a laugh as he said the teleprompter “is in big trouble.” A day later his tone hardened: “All security tapes at the escalator should be saved, especially the emergency stop button,” he wrote. “This was absolutely sabotage…
The people that did it should be arrested!” The U.N. has declined to comment on arrests or disciplinary measures beyond its description of the safety mechanism and the videographer’s likely role.
Inside the General Assembly Hall, the start-of-speech glitch appeared to last only moments, with Trump continuing extemporaneously before returning to his prepared text once the display was functioning. A U.N. official told reporters that the body’s teleprompting equipment for other speakers was operating normally and that the president’s device falls outside U.N. control—an arrangement familiar to former White House speechwriters and communications staff, who say presidential prompters are typically run by U.S. personnel.
The White House has not publicly addressed those logistics beyond Leavitt’s posts and television comments.
Trump’s claim that three separate failings were coordinated against him rests on the escalator stoppage, the brief prompter outage and the alleged reduction of hall volume. On two of the three, the U.N. has now provided explanations that point to factors within the U.S. delegation or beyond the U.N.’s control, while declining to litigate the sound complaint publicly. The AP summarized the gap succinctly:
Trump has asked the U.N. to preserve video of the escalator area and has said the Secret Service will be part of the inquiry; the U.N. says its equipment stopped because a safety feature did what it is designed to do.
For the president, the episode has been folded into a broader message about the U.N.’s competence and relevance. In his address, he faulted the organization for “empty words,” warned European allies that their countries “are going to hell,” and argued the body “has such tremendous potential” but is not close to meeting it.
Whether the facilities review and the protective-services check produce findings that support his suspicions or confirm an accidental chain of events, the images from Tuesday—the halted escalator, the opening-line quip about a blank screen—are now part of his running critique. As of Thursday, there was no indication from the Secret Service or the U.N. of confirmed wrongdoing.
If there is a formal U.N. response beyond the technical note, it has yet to be published. Dujarric’s office said the organization would not comment on teleprompter operations and referred questions about that device to the White House. Inquiries about the hall audio were not addressed in detail.
Trump’s press team continued to highlight the Times of London report about staff “joking” on escalators in past years, while acknowledging there is no evidence those jokes were operationalized this week. The U.N. statement, meanwhile, provides a clear causal chain for a device that failed at an inopportune—and highly visible—moment.
The White House and the U.N. both say safety is paramount when heads of state move through the complex during high-security weeks like the General Assembly’s opening. In practice, that means overlapping jurisdictions: U.N. building engineers maintain equipment; U.S. agencies coordinate protective corridors; and presidential staff handle their own staging and speech support.
The escalator’s safety system, designed to stop when the comb step is disturbed, appears to have done so within feet of the president—ending with an unscripted climb and, 24 hours later, a political demand for accountability that the U.N. says should be directed elsewhere.